Manchester United could not have asked for more accommodating opponents on the day Arsenal slipped up. Cristiano Ronaldo predictably proved too sharp for Newcastle's beleaguered defence as Manchester United's deficit at the top of the Premier League was cut to three points.

The free-scoring winger created the opening goal for Wayne Rooney and added the next two himself to take his total for the season to 29. He might have had more, but he played for only 67 minutes. It was that easy, as the travelling supporters correctly observed. 'We played really well, and could have scored a few more goals,' Sir Alex Ferguson said, perhaps unintentionally managing to sound blase about a 5-1 away win.

The only good news for Newcastle was that Manchester United did not hit six, as they did at Old Trafford last month. The bad news was that they could easily have had eight or nine. Relegation is beginning to be mentioned here, Michael Owen and Alan Smith discussed the possibility in the match programme and Kevin Keegan is not fooling himself. 'You need 40 points and we've got 28,' he said. 'We need to win a game.' The general view is that Newcastle are not in the mire yet, though only because the teams at the bottom are showing few signs of stirring.

Manchester United were a little bit too wound up to begin with, as if conscious that Arsenal's result at had put them under extra scrutiny. There seemed no way that the famously fragile Newcastle defence could cope with Rooney and Carlos Tévez playing off each other, with Ronaldo and Nani swapping wings at will and Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher threading thoughtful balls through from midfield, yet the visitors spent the first 20 minutes trying to be too clever. Few of the assorted tricks and feints came off, and Steven Taylor and Abdoulaye Faye initially found the Manchester United attack less of a handful than they might have imagined.

Nani and Ronaldo were being closely shackled and the crowd relishing some hard but fair tackles going in, yet when the pair swapped wings again midway through the first half it produced an elegantly simple opener. Ronaldo chased a ball down the left and beat Habib Beye with one of his handbrake turns, before whipping in the perfect cross for Rooney to give Shay Given no chance at the far post. How Newcastle bounced back, if at all, was important to Keegan, who had said beforehand he was fed up of seeing heavy defeats as a result of his players feeling sorry for themselves once the first goal was conceded. To their credit, they did not buckle immediately.

Inevitably though, pressing forward for an equaliser did not make them any more solid at the back, and Manchester United were profligate in converting only one more of the chances they created before half time. But just as it seemed Newcastle might reach the dressing room to encouraging words from their manager, they were undone by another goal of stunning simplicity on the stroke of the interval. Carrick looked up, spotted Ronaldo's run, and a through-ball down the middle and the winger's reliable finishing did the rest.

Keegan looked to have aged by several years when he stood up to leave the dugout at the break. 'All I had to do at half time was be honest,' Keegan said. 'It was obvious the next goal would be crucial, and we didn't get it. We didn't give in this time, I was pleased about that, but the concentration went and then the confidence, too.'

Newcastle had to make a goalkeeping change, Steve Harper coming out for the second half in place of Given. When Tévez and Nani launched a breakaway, with Rooney sprinting fully 50 yards to try and get on the end, Ronaldo squandered the cross with a shot so preposterously high it had the Manchester United supporters inquiring what the hell it was. Stung into making amends, Ronaldo demonstrated a better finish in the 56th minute, though only after falling over and losing possession, then seeing Newcastle give it straight back to Fletcher. Brushing off Taylor's somewhat desperate attempt to intervene, Ronaldo advanced on goal and calmly beat Taylor to end any semblance of a contest.

Unless you count bear-baiting, which is what the taunting of Keegan by the visiting supporters for the rest of the game resembled. Not because the Newcastle manager cannot handle ironic chants of 'Keegan for England' or 'Keegan is back', but because being tied to this club at the moment is a bit like being chained to a stake and poked with sticks.

Rooney restored the three-goal cushion with a curling shot on the visitors' very next attack and Louis Saha made it five in stoppage time. That's nine goals in two Saturdays now for Ferguson's team, with Arsenal out of the FA Cup and beginning to stutter in the league. Bet he just loves it.